Chapter 47

She entered her sitting room, locked the door, threw herself upon the couch. Round lunch time there came a creaking in the corridor, a knock. It was David in his wheel chair, propelled by Hamoud.

"No lunch. And perhaps no dinner. It's only a headache, dear. I shall be all right."

"Your voice sounds----"

"Why not, since I'm suffering a little?"

The creaking sound died away.

At the first glimmer of dawn she was up. An hour later she entered David's bedroom, dressed, hatted, and gloved. Her skin appeared translucent. Her hands, drawing her cloak round her shivering body, seemed almost too weak for that task.

"Why, where are you going?"

"To town. It seems that Parr has fallen ill."

She leaned over him quickly, thinking of all the kisses of betrayal that had ever been bestowed upon the unaware. She went out leaving him dumfounded by her appearance of feverish eagerness, energy, and illness.

On the ride to New York she lay back in the corner of the limousine, her face burning, her lips pressed together. "He thinks I don't love him, it seems!" That was the tender menace she hurled ahead of her, as the car carried her swiftly--yet how slowly!--toward his rooms.

She remembered Anna Zanidov.

"The infallible clairvoyant! All that solemn nonsense! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!"

She found herself at the door of his rooms, ringing, knocking, calling his name through the panels. She recollected that she had the key in her purse. The door swung back with a bang, and she ran through the shaded apartment that was filled with the dull gleaming of weapons. She stopped before the bed that had not been slept in. She returned to the living room, and gazed at the withered petals lying round the gourd.

The doorway framed an undersized, obese old man who wore a skullcap of black silesia. He was the janitor.

"Where is Mr. Teck?"

"Mr. Teck!" the janitor exclaimed in a shocked voice.

The words tumbled out of her mouth:

"He was here yesterday, surely. Didn't he leave any word?"

"Mr. Lawrence Teck?" the old fellow repeated, in consternation.

Behind him hesitated, in passing by, a young man with an inquisitive face, who had under his arm a leather portfolio. She slammed the door on them. In the shadowy room the very walls seemed to be crumbling.

She searched everywhere for a note, for some sign that he had been here; but there was no object in the place not covered with dust.

Then, sunk in a stupor, she drove to the little house in Greenwich Village. Her ring was answered by Parr's niece, the woman with the sleek bandeaux. Mr. Teck had been here twice, the second time late last night. On that occasion he had taken Parr away with him.

"Where to?"

"Ah, ma'am, if only I knew!"

Those faded, medieval eyes gazed at the benefactress in a sudden understanding and intimacy; and Lilla thought, "You, too, perhaps in some region far removed from your pots and pans, have had such a moment as this!" And she would have liked to let her face fall forward upon the bosom of that threadbare working dress, feel those toil-worn arms close round her, and utter the plea, "Tell me how to bear such things, to survive, to emerge into that strange serenity of yours."

She drove to Brantome's. The whole world was now tumbling down about her ears.

Brantome rose from his desk, where perhaps he had been sketching out some brilliant appreciation of _Marco Polo_. After one glance at Lilla:

"What's happened?"

She showed him a look of hatred that embraced the whole room; for it was not only he, but also this abode of his, that had entrapped her. In accents that lashed him like whips she told him everything.

The old Frenchman sat down with a thump, and let his ruined face droop forward. She heard the hoarse rumble:

"What shall I do now?"

"Find him!"

She returned to the house in the country.

In the middle of the third night, the telephone beside her pillow gave a buzz, more terrifying than a shout of fire, an earthquake, a knife at the throat. Brantome was speaking. Parr had returned to the house in Greenwich Village. Lawrence Teck had sailed secretly, that day, for Africa.

She replaced the receiver on the hook, rested her head on her hands, and remained thus for a long while. In the end she formed the words:

"That woman."

She was thinking of "the infallible clairvoyant."